Probably the chief value of a research paper in an introductory course is to help one learn one’s way around the appropriate section of the library and the Internet, discovering the specialized resources available and how to use them. This section will provide a brief overview of those resources and suggestions on how to get started on research.
The first task is to find a suitable topic, with suitable being defined as 1) a topic you are interested in, 2) one on which resources are available, and 3) one that is manageable in the time available before the due date. The resources section at the end of each chapter lists a few potential topics; other topics will surely occur to you as you read the New Testament writings.
Once you have chosen a topic, the next step is to get an overview of it so that you will have a perspective from which you can pursue your own inquiry. Perhaps the discussion in class or in this text has already provided you sufficient perspective, but do not neglect the dictionaries and encyclopedias that are available. These reference works will usually identify what the issues are and provide a basic beginning bibliography.
The most comprehensive dictionary available is the eight-volume Anchor Bible Dictionary (Freeman, 1992). However the older Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Buttrick, 1962 and 1976) is still useful. One-volume dictionaries are less useful, but three of the best are the Harper’s Bible Dictionary, (Achtemeier, 1996); Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, (Freedman, and others, 2000); and the New Bible Dictionary, (Wood, 1996). The newer edition of The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, (Bromiley, 1988) is also useful.
Consulting a one-volume commentary can be helpful in getting an overview of a particular biblical writing or a thumbnail sketch of a particular passage. Four quite different works, each excellent in its own way, are available:
Two related reference sets are The Oxford Classical Dictionary, (Hornblower and Spawforth 1996), which contains fine introductions to Greek and Roman antiquity; and Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols. plus supplement, 1972; also available on CD-ROM, 1997.
Your next task is to find the relevant scholarly literature on your subject. The small bibliographies in the dictionaries reference only the most important work, but each of these works will have its own bibliography of earlier work. The lists of topics at the end of each chapter in this book provide several suggestions, usually listed in the order they might be most useful. To find more recent work you will need to use the scholarly indexes that are available in book form, on CD ROM, and on the Internet.
The basic journal index for all aspects of religion studies is Religion Index (formerly known as Index to Religious Periodical Literature). It is a comprehensive reference database, containing more than one million citations from over fourteen hundred international journal titles and fourteen thousand multi-author works and book reviews related to religious studies from 1949 to the present. Available in book form, on CD-ROM, and on-line through subscription, it is produced by the American Theological Library Association (information at http://www.atla.com/).
New Testament topics are also treated in the annual bibliographic guide to the ancient world, L’Année philologique, especially in section 1 (Histoire Littéraire, and its subdivision Littérature judéo‑chrétienne) and section 5 (Histoire, and its subdivision, Histoire religieuse et mythologie). It covers works in English, French, and German. More comprehensive, but not as widely available, is Elenchus Bibliographicus Biblicus, a topical index to over one thousand journals, published in Rome by the Biblical Institute Press.
Another strategy for finding recent work, especially for seminal works, is to find who is citing these works in their footnotes. This can be done through The Arts and Humanities Citation Index. This work indexes articles and books according to the sources they cite. This too is available in electronic form; check with your librarian.
Another very valuable reference work is New Testament Abstracts, which provides short abstracts of articles from most of the important journals that deal with the New Testament. These abstracts can be very useful in deciding whether you need to get the article, should the article not be readily available in your library. This work also contains notices and abstracts of new books. It is arranged by biblical writing rather than by topic, with periodic indexes. There are three issues a year, with the third issue containing an index by scripture passage and author. It is now available on CD-ROM back to 1988, though with a limited search engine.
One other very useful work is available in both book form and on CD-ROM, Religious and Theological Abstracts. It too has the major benefit of including a short abstract of the articles indexed. The on-line version allows you to do a limited demonstration search and allows short-term subscriptions over the Internet at a very reasonable fee (http://rtabst.org/default.html).
A wealth of information is available on the Internet, but also an ample supply of biased and erroneous information. For general guidelines for evaluating information from the Internet see: http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/ One way to find reliable information is to use the services of a New Testament scholar. Probably the best such service is provided by Mark Goodacre at his site: http://ntgateway.com/. As the name suggests, this is an index to other sites and resources. Also of great value is the site of Torrey Seland at http://www.hivolda.no/asf/kkf/rel-stud.html. Finally, the University of Pennsylvania maintains a rather full listing of sites for the study of Judaism and Christianity (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/resources.html).
For information about the Greco-Roman world there are three very useful sites: Argos is an excellent search engine for all aspects of the ancient and medieval worlds (http://argos.evansville.edu/). Diotima provides information for the study of women and gender in the ancient world (http://www.stoa.org/diotima/). Finally, the Perseus project attempts to make a wide range of resource material available on the web, including texts, art works, and archaeological information (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/).
The general format for citing material on the world wide web is similar to that for print citations and the general principle is the same: give the reader enough information to find the original. If you know the author, list the item by author’s name, last name first, followed by the full title of the item, in quotation marks. If the item is part of a larger work, give the name of the larger work in italics, followed by any version or file number and the date of the document’s creation or last revision. Next list the protocol (for example, http://) and the full URL, followed by the date of access in parentheses. Thus, for example:
Goodacre, Mark. “Comprehensively Questing for Jesus?” 1999. http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/goodacre/theissen.htm (July 20, 2001).
“Ancient Olympic Events.” The Ancient Olympics. February 21, 1997. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Olympics/sports.html (July 20, 2001).
More elaborate instructions for citing internet publications can be found at these sites:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~africa/citation.html
http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/citation/index.cfm
In addition to your own library catalog, the catalogs of most major research libraries are now available on-line. These catalogs are very useful for discovering all that has been published on a specific topic; you can virtually browse the shelves by searching for a call number of a book on your topic. See the comprehensive listing at: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Libweb/Academic_main.html.
There are a number of online discussion groups devoted to New Testament topics, most have archives of past discussion. Here is a list of some of the best scholarly groups.
Graphai is a New Testament discussion group conducted under the auspices of the Society of Biblical Literature (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/graphai/).
Synoptic-L is an email conference for the discussion of the Synoptic Gospels (http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/synoptic-l/)
Johannine Literature is a moderated Internet group for the Academic Discussion of the Fourth Gospel and the Letters of John (http://clawww.lmu.edu/faculty/fjust/Johannine_List.htm).
Xtalk focuses its discussion on the Historical Jesus and Early Christian Origins (http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/goodacre/xtalk/).
Corpus Paulinum (the Corpus-Paul List) is a moderated academic e-list dedicated to the scholarly discussion and evaluation of critical questions surrounding the life, influence, teaching, theology, and the writings of the Apostle Paul. (http://www.ibiblio.org/corpus-paul/).
The Revelation mailing list offers a forum for scholarly discussions and information exchange concerning the Book of Revelation for qualified scholars and serious students (http://sunsite.dk/Revelation/apclist.html).
The more important journals for the study of the New Testament include:
The Journal of Biblical Literature is the professional journal of the Society of Biblical Literature. [JBL]
New Testament Studies is the professional journal of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, based in England. [NTS]
The Catholic Biblical Quarterly is the professional journal of the Catholic Biblical Association. [CBQ]
Interpretation is published by Union Theological Seminary in Virginia and deals with all aspects of biblical literature. Issues often focus on a specific problem or kind of literature.
Novum Testamentum is a New Testament journal published by E. J. Brill, Leiden. [NovT]
Semeia is an experimental journal devoted to newer methods of study, especially literary and structuralist studies of biblical literature. Issues are devoted to specific themes or methods.
Biblical Theology Bulletin is probably the best source today for articles on the social analysis of biblical writings and culture, many from an anthropological approach. [BTB]
Harvard Theological Review, despite its name, covers all aspects of the study of religion including historical, archaeological, and literary approaches. [HTR]
American Academy of Religion Journal, the professional journal in general religion studies. [JAAR]
Two new journals that hold promise of significant contribution are Biblical Interpretation and Dead Sea Discoveries both published by Brill in Leiden.
In addition, journals focusing on the study of Judaism and on classical antiquity often cover topics important for the study of the New Testament. Some of the more important ones are listed below.
American Philological Association, Transactions and Proceedings, a major journal for the study of classical Greece and Rome. [TAPA]
Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt is published in Germany but contains many English articles. It specializes in major treatments of specific themes. [ANRW]
Other journals include Antiquity; Classical Journal; Classical Quarterly; Classical World; Gnomon; Greece and Rome; Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Hermes; Isis; the Journal of Roman Studies; and Yale Classical Studies.
The Hebrew Union Annual, published by the Hebrew Union College, deals with all aspects of the study of Judaism.
The Jewish Quarterly Review; the Journal for the Study of Judaism; Judaism: A Quarterly; and the Journal of Jewish Studies are all useful references.
The sources for studying Rabbinic Judaism are vast, complex, and obscure. The most accessible English introduction is Neusner, 1995; Strack and Stemberger, 1996, is more advanced. Also see Safrai, 1987.
The earliest literature is the Mishnah, published from earlier oral tradition about 200 CE. It consists of 63 tractates, each on a separate topic. One of the most accessible is Aboth (The Fathers). The standard English version of the Mishnah is that of Danby, 1933; there is a new translation by Neusner, 1988.
The most important literature is the Talmud, which exists in two versions: the Jerusalem Talmud (published around 400 CE) and the Babylonian Talmud (published around 600 CE; this is the more authoritative and can be referred to simply as the Talmud). The Talmud is largely a vast commentary on the Mishnah, each discussion starting with a quotation from the Mishnah then adding large quantities of comments and discussion by various rabbis. The standard English translation is published in 36 volumes (Epstein, 1935; see also Neusner, 1982-1993).
Other important literature includes the Tosefta (meaning additions); it contains further thoughts on the topics addressed in the Mishnah. The Midrashim (meaning investigations) are a series of commentaries on scripture; there are many such commentaries from various periods of Jewish history. Finally, there are the Targumim, a series of Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew Scripture.
Citations: one difficulty is that many of the tractates, and even the whole works, can be called by different names. For example the tractate on The Fathers can be cited as Avoth, Avot, Aboth, Pirke Aboth, or Mishnah Aboth. The Mishnah is also spelled Mishna; the Jerusalem Talmud is also called the Palestinian Talmud, the Talmud of the Land of Israel, or simply Yerushalmi; the Babylonian Talmud is also called Bavli. Citations from the Mishnah will often just use the name of the tractate (for example, Aboth), but may be cited as Mishnah Aboth or M. Aboth. Talmudic citations will included the name of the tractate and some indicator of which Talmud it is from, often just with an initial: TB or B for the Babylonian Talmud; Y for the Jerusalem Talmud.
For academic journals, see Dawsey, 1988.
Reviews of important monographs may be located by using the Index to Book Reviews in Religion and the Book Review Index. A newer guide covering only the past few years, the Review of Biblical Literature (RBL), is published by the Society of Biblical Literature. A print edition is available annually by subscription; the online version can be accessed at: http://www.bookreviews.org/.
Bibliographic guides are also available. Among the best are J. A. Fitzmyer, 1990; Danker, 1993; and. France, 1979. Each is annotated. Also useful is the minimally annotated listing of Scholer1990. Stuart, 1990, evaluates commentaries from a conservative perspective. For a guide to the classical world see Bagnall, 1980. On Judaism see Cutter and Oppenheim, 1982.
Many specialized bibliographies are also available; see the following bibliography for complete details:
Rhetoric and the Bible—Watson and Hauser 1994
Paul— Borchert, 1985; Metzger, 1960.
Roman Religion—Beard, North, and Price, 1998.